David Ley on Sex Addiction & Porn – Smart Sex, Smart Love with Dr. Joe Kort

It’s sometimes hard to debunking “sex/porn addiction.” This week on Smart Sex, Smart Love, Joe Kort chats with David Ley, an internationally-recognized expert on issues related to sexuality, pornography, and mental health. Together Joe and David discuss how David debunks the myth of “sex addiction”, in his book, ‘The Myth of Sex Addiction’. Is “sex addiction” a real diagnosis, or an avoidance to deal with the real issues a person is struggling with? And asks, ‘What does “sex addiction” mean for you?’
 

Dr. Joe Kort:                       Hello and welcome to Smart Sex Smart Love. I'm Dr. Joe Kort, and today I'll be interviewing Dr. David Ley. David Ley is a licensed psychologist and internationally recognized expert on issues related to sexuality, pornography, and mental health. He has served as an expert consultant for numerous media outlets appearing with Anderson Cooper, Katie Couric, Dr. Phil, Tom Ashbrook, and Dan Savage.

Dr. Joe Kort:                       David is a clinical psychologist and author known for his critical stance regarding sex addition and pornography. His first book, Insatiable Wives, won a silver medal in the Foreword Magazine Book of the Year in 2009. His book, Myth of Sex Addiction, is widely regarded as a strong argument against the concept. He also has another book, Ethical Porn for Dicks, which is a funny title, but a very well researched and easy read book about ethical porn. He has been-

Dr. David Ley:                    Yeah, there's a lot of guys named Richard out there that watch porn. The book's for them, man.

Dr. Joe Kort:                       Oh, that's awesome. That's the spirit of the book, isn't it?

Dr. David Ley:                    That's right.

Dr. Joe Kort:                       All right. Well, why don't we start, David? I'm so glad to have you. You know I'm ... We have a history ... Well, for me, my end of the history was adversarial with you at first, because I was a sex addiction therapist, and then you helped me come out of that whole model. Yeah, can you talk about-

Dr. David Ley:                    Yeah, I mean, honestly Joe, I mean, I have such tremendous respect and admiration for you. I'll never forget, I was ... The first time you and I ever had a real open heart to heart discussion was ... I don't want to ... Maybe five or six years ago, I was driving back from Colorado, I live in Albuquerque, and I was driving back from Colorado, and I had just picked up a new puppy from a rescue in Colorado that I was bringing home, and somehow you and I ended up having like a 45 minute or an hour conversation as I was driving. I got to know you, you got know me, we started talking about some of our shared views and concerns about the sex addiction model, and watching your career since. I mean, watching that video you did recently about how you ran into that former sex addiction patient and apologized to him, it brought tears to my eyes. I mean, it's really an extraordinary transformation.

Dr. Joe Kort:                       Thank you, and that was really because of your work. Even though I didn't like what you were saying, and I didn't agree with it, it went in. It stayed in me, because there was a part of me that knew that I was in the wrong model, and it was not helpful. I believed you, but I didn't want to believe you. I'm sure you get a lot of that.

Dr. David Ley:                    Yeah, a bit. I mean, what is interesting is that, because I ... As I've approached this, I mean, when I first started writing against the concept of sex addiction, I went at it in a very academic, kind of scholarly way, and I was surprised when I got such vitriolic backlash, when I got such anger, when I started getting death threats, when I was getting threats of lawsuit from sex addiction therapists and such,